Resident Evil 4 Not Running True Widescreen

sirris

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(It's been almost a week since I've answered the "does RE4 run in widescreen and/or progressive scan?" question, so here goes: yes, the recent build runs in progressive scan. No, the game does not run in true anamorphic widescreen. Rather, it's letterboxed. People with widescreen televisions can use the zoom function to literally magnify the image, therein cutting off the "black bars" and perfectly fitting the screen to 16x9 sets. But of course the downside to doing this is that it's not true widescreen and by blowing the image up you will lose some clarity.)


Friggin brilliant. Make a widescreen game that doesn't run in anamorphic widescreen. That has to be the stupidest thing I've heard. More Capcom brilliance. What a joke.
 
I'm getting a sense of deja vu here.

They're probably saving some fillrate by using the black bars, and it supposedly adds a feeling of, um, claustrophobia?
 
sirris said:
Friggin brilliant. Make a widescreen game that doesn't run in anamorphic widescreen. That has to be the stupidest thing I've heard. More Capcom brilliance. What a joke.

Ubisoft did the same thing with Beyond Good and Evil.. stupid.. but it must be a technical limitation.
 
Miburou said:
I'm getting a sense of deja vu here.

They're probably saving some fillrate by using the black bars, and it supposedly adds a feeling of, um, claustrophobia?

The way that Leon is set on the screen makes sense for the widescreen choice. I actually they were hoping to put in full widescreen support but realized that the fillrate wouldn't survive. I don't think that letterbox was the original intention.
 
It's really not that big of a deal... but if Eastern developers want to prove they can lead again in the gaming market, they need to stop over looking things like this.
 
jedimike said:
It's really not that big of a deal... but if Eastern developers want to prove they can lead again in the gaming market, they need to stop over looking things like this.
IAWTP

It might seem like a tiny thing for people with 4:3 TVs but for us with Widescreen it looks like shit to zoom or just have those black borders on each side. Sometimes I even skip games that doesn't support 16:9.
 
I don't really see what the big deal is with '16:9' or 'widescreen' or what have you. I don't think I'll ever own a TV that can support such wizardry.
 
This is only going to matter to people who have a 1.78:1 digital TV anyway. That's if they even care about or notice the vertical resolution difference. Those not playing in 480p will probably find it even less important. The horizontal resolution is still in tact, and it's doubtful the effect will be as pronounced as it would be a film transfer. I'm willing to bet that the feature is much less important to people in Europe and Asia by the way.

Overall, it's disappointing that the current build doesn't have true 16:9, but if the final build doesn't it won't be a big deal to me personally. Is this the final build?
 
radioheadrule83 said:
This is only going to matter to people who have a 1.78:1 digital TV anyway. That's if they even care about or notice the vertical resolution difference. Those not playing in 480p will probably find it even less important. The horizontal resolution is still in tact, and it's doubtful the effect will be as pronounced as it would be a film transfer. I'm willing to bet that the feature is much less important to people in Europe and Asia by the way.

Overall, it's disappointing that the current build doesn't have true 16:9, but if the final build doesn't it won't be a big deal to me personally. Is this the final build?

I'm not what version this build is, but with RE4 a month away I wouldn't hold my breath for 16X9 right now.
 
Wario64 said:
I want to hear Capcom's excuse on this issue

You guys do realize its drawing to less of the screen would give it a little more graphical power, right? Didn't anyone here play Doom or Quake on the PC? :)
 
MarkMacD said:
You guys do realize its drawing to less of the screen would give it a little more graphical power, right? Didn't anyone here play Doom or Quake on the PC? :)

yes I heard that it helps keep the fps steady by doing this.
 
As someone referenced before, BG&E came under criticism for this in the past. I thought it was a great choice for BG&E (and expect the same for RE4), specifically because I didn't even realize it was letterboxed until after playing the game and seeing someone complain about it.

Obviously though, this is becoming a bigger issue with this higher-profile game.
 
BG&E did not run in letterbox. IIRC, only the cutscenes were letterbox. The actual game was either 4:3 or anamorphic widescreen because I don't remember ever having to zoom my 65" Mits when I played it.
 
It does burn more fillrate, but I don't see why they couldn't just give the gamer the option of running in full anamorphic res with worse framerates as opposed to letterboxed. It's literally like a couple of lines of code to do this, discounting altering the options menu.
 
jedimike said:
BG&E did not run in letterbox. IIRC, only the cutscenes were letterbox. The actual game was either 4:3 or anamorphic widescreen because I don't remember ever having to zoom my 65" Mits when I played it.

No, BG&E is indeed letterboxed during gameplay, I just booted BG&E up on Xbox and playing the game right now and it is letterbox during gameplay, menu selection etc.
 
SantaCruZer said:
How is this news for anyone? I knew this several months back.
You really are boring, aren't you? You need to spice up your posts a bit ;)

Rather like this;

Thank FUCK 480p is still in there!!11
 
"Wait for the PS2 version or not?"
"RE4 would rock... if it had strafe!"
"Just look at the sales of the past Resident Evil's on GC. RE4 will bomb."
"Widescreen isn't anamorphic, cancel your preorders."
"I've played the full version Resident Evil 4, and it's damn good."
"How can you even consider this a GOTY 2005 candidate with Zelda on the horizon?"
"Best Graphics artistically, maybe, but NOT technically!"

Can't wait for this cyclical process to begin anew!
 
Goreomedy said:
"Wait for the PS2 version or not?"
"RE4 would rock... if it had strafe!"
"Just look at the sales of the past Resident Evil's on GC. RE4 will bomb."
"Widescreen isn't anamorphic, cancel your preorders."
"I've played the full version Resident Evil 4, and it's damn good."
"How can you even consider this a GOTY 2005 candidate with Zelda on the horizon?"
"Best Graphics artistically, maybe, but NOT technically!"

Can't wait for this cyclical process to begin anew!
:lol :lol :lol
 
jedimike said:
BG&E did not run in letterbox. IIRC, only the cutscenes were letterbox. The actual game was either 4:3 or anamorphic widescreen because I don't remember ever having to zoom my 65" Mits when I played it.

BG&E did run in a matted widescreen. The game was 640x480 with a portion of the 480 eaten away by the letterbox.

If it is indeed true that RE4 doesn't support anamorphic widescreen then they made a very bad decision.
 
jedimike said:
It's really not that big of a deal... but if Eastern developers want to prove they can lead again in the gaming market, they need to stop over looking things like this.

Uh...why are you trying to turn this into an "East vs West" issue? As people have stated more than once in this thread, Beyond Good & Evil did the same thing, so it's hardly limited to Japanese-developed games. And I don't see how it makes much of a difference for the "East"...maybe if there was an actual trend to talk about.
 
trippingmartian said:
BG&E at least gave you the option of running in 4:3. Either way it's not too big of a deal, though it does seem like a waste of screen space.

No it didn't.
 
BG&E functions the same way as RE4. Both are 4:3 games running in letterboxed mode. Neither offer true 16:9. That's a fact.
 
This is obviously a performance issue. They had to reduce the texture color depth and stuff just to have the damn thing run the way it does, so not running the game @ a full 853x480 is very understandable. The game is obviously spanking the hardware, ummm.... hard.
 
Shogmaster said:
This is obviously a performance issue. They had to reduce the texture color depth and stuff just to have the damn thing run the way it does, so not running the game @ a full 853x480 is very understandable. The game is obviously spanking the hardware, ummm.... hard.

IAWTP.
 
Shogmaster said:
This is obviously a performance issue. They had to reduce the texture color depth and stuff just to have the damn thing run the way it does, so not running the game @ a full 853x480 is very understandable. The game is obviously spanking the hardware, ummm.... hard.

The game wouldn't run the 853x480. It would just be 640x480 anamorphic stretched to 16:9. Just like SSX3 for example.
 
Oh! My Car! said:
You really are boring, aren't you? You need to spice up your posts a bit ;)

Rather like this;

Thank FUCK 480p is still in there!!11


RE4 will own you all anyway, oh yeah i am fucking driunk so i am not boring now! yeah hail re4
 
radioheadrule83 said:
This is only going to matter to people who have a 1.78:1 digital TV anyway. That's if they even care about or notice the vertical resolution difference. Those not playing in 480p will probably find it even less important.
I don't have a widescreen or progressive scan TV, and yet anamorphic widescreen support is still a big feature for me. I can turn on the "16:9 Enhanced Mode" AKA "anamorphic squeeze" option on my Sony flatscreen and get a nice crisp image that's a third higher in resolution than a letterboxed game without that support. It really is a noticeable difference.

Examples of games that look great like this are the SSX series, Ratchet & Clank series, Panzer Dragoon Orta, True Crime: Streets of L.A., GTA series, Star Wars: Battlefront, Halo 2, etc. It is pretty odd that RE4 was touted as a "widescreen only" game and yet doesn't support this feature when so many other games do.
 
er.

Can you even do the zoom on a widescreen TV while using progressive mode? Anamorphic stretch I can understand, but this game would need you to do the full zoom (the kind you hate because you lose resolution).

If not, then if you have a widescreen TV, you either run it interlaced and zoom in (where it will look bad), or progressive and have a little postage stamp with black bars on all four sides.
 
A ton of Xbox games run in widescreen native, Halo 2 and Riddick being the most recent ones I've played though.

On GC I know that Super Monkey Ball 2 and F-Zero GX both have true 16:9 modes as well.
 
Sho Nuff said:
A ton of Xbox games run in widescreen native, Halo 2 and Riddick being the most recent ones I've played though.

On GC I know that Super Monkey Ball 2 and F-Zero GX both have true 16:9 modes as well.

Soul Calibur 2, also.
 
Eternal Darkness and Star Fox supports widescreen as well.

It seems that Japan in general is a little retarded when it comes to widescreen support. Only a handfull of developers supports it - Sega, Team Ninja, Polyphony...
 
Sho Nuff said:
A ton of Xbox games run in widescreen native, Halo 2 and Riddick being the most recent ones I've played though.

On GC I know that Super Monkey Ball 2 and F-Zero GX both have true 16:9 modes as well.

Metroid Prime does as well as R:Racing Evolution, Burnout 2, Soul Calibur 2, Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy, Nightfire. I know there are more than that as well.

Most people think Halo 2 isn't widescreen because the radar and sight don't turn into proper circles in 16:9
 
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